Reads Nursery is / was the only place to get a decent variety of fig trees in this country, it seems to have been off line for a month or so, do any UK members know anything? has Reads closed down? I cant find any news on the internet,

Cheers,Steve

Hi Steve, I've been wondering the same thing,I tried googling about to see if there was any news about it but nothing,I sent a few emails regarding cuttings for this winter before the site went down,no response.have you tried calling?

Hi Haroon,

I've not tried calling as i'm not looking to buy trees at the moment, but may well do so in the future, it'd be sad to see the place go, they are something like 5th generation nursery people, they hold the largest uk fig collection too. If they close i guess that honour will fall to Vinny in Bognor, ;-) he seems to have a fair few varieties going down there :-)

Regards, Steve

as long as there are no customs hindrances, you may order from france or germany, too. there are somer very good fig-shops.

may I post the shoplinks here? or is it forbidden in this forum?

Steve, I also have tried to contact Reads with no luck. I had no reply to an email sent 10th November. A subsequent email sent 7th December failed delivery which suggests the email address is no longer valid. I have also tried phoning a few times. The phone rings but nobody answers. Like you I could find nothing on the internet, which is surprising.
I did notice that this year while the website was still up their available fig varieties were much reduced, which could have been a sign of the business running down.
Still it is a shame that another traditional nursery appears to have closed.
For future reference RV Roger of Pickering North Yorkshire has a pretty good selection of figs including col de dame blanche.
Cheers, John

Hey guys,
I Spoke to steven reads on facebook. They have closed the business due to personal reasons.

Very sad to hear Reads is gone,but when it's personal reasons enough said,it's a pity I wasn't interested in figs earlier of they would have picked up some business from me.Did he mention what was going to happen to the collection? I know they didn't make much of having the 'national collection' status but who is there now to take up that baton?

My understanding was that National Fruit collection status was awarded by DEFRA,could be wrong but I think that's how Brogdale got theirs.

I've got a great list of nurseries from you Vinny,many of whom sell at very reasonable prices,I window shop them in the same way my wife does shoes haha.Im very glad we have someone in the UK with their finger on the pulse of the U.K. Fig world,what little there seems to be of it.

Once I've got my garden and allotment sorted I'll have more space for half a dozen in ground and a 'few' potted, so I've tried to slow down a bit on acquiring actual trees for now,,but having options when it comes to selecting what varieties to buy is a good thing and our local options just got that bit smaller.

It's just a great shame to see another family run traditional nursery go to the wall,I know lots have been lost due to not being able to transition to the Internet well and competition from the big nursery companies but Reads had decent enough website and the widest selection for sale on this island of figs and they had a lot of other fruit plants as well.Oh well, I suppose there is always Wyvale lol